the other thing is that people in america are lousy at keeping secrets. [ laughter ] they are the world's worst people at keeping secrets and this comes back to bite them all the time. in the war of 1812. you get officers in the front line writing letters about how terrible their troops are and they are not prepared and they are sick and they get published in the newspapers and people talk about stuff. they can't stop themselves from talking. so we live in a society now where we've been conditioned for the last three generations to try to keep secrets militarily and our government has become better and better at trying to so it can be hard for us to understand why people are just blabbing away about everything. and we can get this notion that black people and white people live in separate worlds. at that time they didn't. and you'll get these virginians

who will frankly say, we have an internal enemy, and they are waiting on our tables, they are working in the fields next to us, and they are hanging on everything we say, and anything we say is being reported to the enemy. >> thank you very much. >> you're welcome. thank you for the questions. yes, ralph? >> why didn't the british -- [ inaudible ] why didn't that keep going? >> okay. well, this goes to the points that andrew makes. the british don't want to be in this war. you know, sometimes these naval officers work up these real good fantasies about how great it would be to break up the united states and really stick it to the americans. but that's never the official policy of their government at home. their policy at home is, let's get out of this war as soon as we can so they want to inflict pain on the united states but not with the goal really, at the

official government level, of breaking up the united states. but of just getting them to give in and make a peace treaty as quickly as possible. so if we compare -- you know, at the peak, the colonial marines is a unit in the chesapeake of 360 men. you're not going to topple slavery with 360 men. in the union force that would end up toppling slavery had 360,000 black troops. it's a whole other scale of things. and that's because the union's goal was not to try to negotiaì% a solution. and they realized the only way that they could crush the confederacy was to enlist thousands of african-americans to help them do it. and the british never get to that point because the war goals are so much more limited for the brirk, and -- for the british,

and at the end of the day, what do they want? they want the united states to go back to being their number one trading partner in the world. they want to be able to resume business and that's not going to be so good if you've totally destroyed the slave system in the united states. so the goal of the policy is to inflict pain on the united states, get them to give in and then go back to a more peaceful and trading relationship that is profitable to british manufacturers again. yes? >> i'm doing research on the slaves on board the potomac squadron that came up the potomac river after the burn in washington. and the ship logs, the british ship logs show they picked up slaves on several occasions and even trained some of the slaves on board the decks in small arms, in preparation for fighting the americans. and i've looked at the depositions that you've looked at so well described in your book. in these same depositions by the land owners that are filed after the war and give these wonderful stories of how the slaves got to the british, they seem to be --

you can tell they are -- the land owners, the neighbors are making a big point on whether or not they went on their own accord or were forcibly taken. so i would like for you to speak about that. >> so, slave messengers do not like to see these escapes as a referendum on their conduct as masters, because they like to believe that they've actually treated their enslaved people, in their view, well. and so they prefer to believe that the british have come in and forced people away. or -- but sometimes you find out what this force means and it means they have come in and told the slaves they'll have a better life in they go away with them. and from the perspective of masters, this is just lies. they are not going to have a better life with the british. so the overwhelming majority of people in virginia and maryland

do not believe that the british are at all sincere of what they are doing and that the slaves are going to end up ruining the -- ruing the day they ran away from their masters. now, there's abundant evidence that this is not true. and there are a handful of slaves who do choose to go back to their masters at the end of the war. you can number them on the fingers of a hand. whereas you've got over 3,000 that prefer to stay with the british. and it's also untrue, it just lives on and the british sold at least some of them into renewed slavery in january of 1812 and there is zero evidence that this happened. yes? >> does a slave revolt have any effect on the military

operations of the americans? >> yes, very much so. particularly on the ability to muster militia. so the united states has a major manpower problem of its own. which is, it doesn't have enough men to invade canada properly and they are sending almost all of their regular troops to invade canada which leaves the defense of the coast overwhelmingly to state militias who are not trained and equipped or motivated for this job in any prolonged way but they are out there month after month obliged to serve in harsh conditions with inadequate equipment and food and a lot of them are being pulled in from the piedmont to the tidewater and they don't like it. and one of the things that they keep coming up with of why they shouldn't have to go down to norfolk and die of malaria, which is the number one killer

of american troops in the chesapeake, malaria at norfolk, which is a graveyard for these militia men. the reason they come up with is, the slaves are probably going to rise up and revolt if the militia is pulled out of the piedmont and sent to the coast. the irony is, by all measures of violence, such as arson, piedmont goes way down during the war. because there are so many militia men marching back and forth on these roads, that actually the slave holders in the piedmont are in more secure control than they were in peacetime. the reverse is true in tidewater where enslaved people can see the british warships, they can hear the british warships mtbáñ because coburn very thoughtfully up and down. coburn liked to call attention to himself. he also liked to call attention

because he knew that if -- that if enslaved people would come the night after they heard thisy warship moving up and down, let's say, the rappahannock. >> were the slaves who escaped house servants and artisans or were they -- >> they come from every -- there's a broad occupational range that slaves have in the chesapeake, and every occupation they have, including field hand, is very well represented. what i did find was that the number who are artisans or house slaves, they are disproportionately represented among the runaways. what that means is, i am not saying they were a majority. because a majority are probably field hands as was a majority of the enslaved population. but the proportion of those who run away who are artisans is -- and house slaves is larger

than the enslaved population. and we find the same pattern in the civil war, that the people who are, who feel mofst aggrievd ut those who have a little more education, a little higher skill, and are much clearer that they -- their ambitions are being stifled. and the british are presenting an opportunity for freedom, what freedom means to a lot of former slaves is the opportunity to finally get the worth of their skill and to be able to hold their families together. and this is appealing across the work up the courage to make the attempt are disproportionate art zanl -- artisans and house slaves and this shocks the

masters, because they think they shouldm2ç most loyal to us, and they are not, and you get the same kind of rhetoric from slave holders when they are shocked that their slaves would betray them. thank you very much. [ [ applause ] >> the symposium on the war of 1812 and the burning of washington, d.c. continues authorities. authors and historians discuss the war, the role of dolly madison and the star spangled national historic tour. we're live starting at 8:30 a.m. eastern here on c-span3, and at 8:00 p.m. eastern, we'll give you another chance to see the discussions and remarks from the event. >> here are some highlights for

this coming weekend. today, live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, the nebraska supreme court will hear oral argument to the keystone pipeline. saturday on the communicators. former fcc commissioners. with command 2014 gearing up, watch the latest debates on c-span opinion sunday at noon, kay hagan and tom tillis. and from the california governor's race, jerry brown and republican nominee neil cache cary. 8:00 on c-span 2, author john yoo shares his opinion on international law. saturday on book tv, mike gonzalez and how he thinks republicans can make gains with the hispanic vote. our three-hour conversation and your phone calls with the former chair of the u.s. commission on civil rights. tonight on c-span 3, authors

and historians talk about the ever 1812. saturday on real america, the building of the hoover dam, and sunday night at 8:00, the anniversary of ford's pardon of nixon. find our schedule at c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us, tweet us or you can e-mail us at comments at xvx c-span.org. join the c-span conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> thursday on c-span, a senate agriculture committee on improving meals in schools. we heard from new york senator gillibrand on the subject.afufç here's a look. >> of course kids like non-whole grains. yes, that's what they prefer. they like sugar even more.

if you give your child a choice of sugar or fruits and vegetables, they're going to pick sugar. but you have to be the adults in the room. you just don't give kids the foods they want. you have to teach them to eat well their wholeó+3 lives. that takes leadership, determination, creativity. i love the fact that you told your school district, pick three colors every day. my children, when i was teaching them about nutrition, that's how we did it, how many colors can you put on your plate? they loved that. vegetables, they only like steamed vegetables. they don't want butter, or cream or cheese on it. they have been eating fruit at every meal since they were babies. because they were introduced healthy foods at every meal, they prefer healthy foods. but a lot of kids are not getting healthy foods at home.

they're getting refined carbohydrates at every meal. a burger and fries. of course they prefer burger and fries, that's what they've been fed since they were little. we have to do more. i feel, that, whys, to senator hobin, it is easy to have flexibility. but let's not serve refined foods at lunch. let's actually push them to eat something healthy what makes them healthy and reach their full potential. when way kid's obese, he didn't reach his full potential. he can't concentrate in class. he's often made fun of. he has low self-esteem. he doesn't reach his full potential. she doesn't reach her full potential. so i am grateful that all of you have thought outside the box,sj figuring out how to solve these problems, meet nutrition standards. i don't want to back off, let's figure it out. we can figure it out. >> thursday a senate agriculture hearing on efforts to improve

nutrition in school males. you can see it at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> now, in the final remarks on day one of the war of 1812 symposium, we hear from john stagg, edison of the james madison papers at the university of virginia. from decatur house in washington, d.c., this is just over an hour. >> um, with that, let me introduce, with great pleasure, dr. john stagg, professor of history at the university of virginia, and editor of the james madison papers, where he's critical volumes of madison's personal correspondence. and we'd like another 20 if you can fit that in in the next few years. >>. [ inaudible ] >> because of the work of john and his usl]team, we have much complete understanding of madison and the context of his

life and really we cannot have done our work without this incredible research. today he's going to illuminate for us the intricacies of madison's presidency, including such factors as the perpetually fluctuating cabinet, and madison's later life reflections on his thoughts about the war. so please join me now in welcoming our colleague and our mentor, dr. john stagg. [ applause ] >> thank you for those words of welcome, and i would like to add my thanks to those of our previous speakers, to the

organizers of the conference today. as the by centennial of the war approached, i found myself what was the federal government and washington going to do about the by centennial of the war of 1812? it was entirely predictable that the great state of maryland would have a part, particularly in &,9÷2014, because it thinks itself a franchise on the star spangled banner and the nation's flag. but i found myself asking, what are they going -- [ indiscernible ] >> well, i'm glad to say that we are doing something here today. and i'm grateful it's been organized for me. let me start with some very general remarks about the nature of james madison's historical reputation. for the first half of the 20th century, i think, madison is

standing was not high. the main reason for that was the war of 1812, which i don't think i need to belabor. it was one of the most frustrating and unpopular wars ever waged by the united states. but it was also the impression that madison was a pale clone of thomas jefferson. in other words about the time of world war 1, historians didn't have a clear sense of madison as a distinctive personality. he stood too much in the shadow of jefferson. there was also another factor that early 20th century historians bore in mind, and that was ma madison had a certain point in his life, contributed, not insignificantly to theories that drove the nation toward civil war in 1861. remember the strearge and kentucky resolutions of 1798. that was held against madison by

ag. so if you looked at these rankings of presidents, in order of their greatness, exercises which american historians love to carry out, you'd find that madison was alwaysdeyw in the bm half of the class. now admittedly he wasn't right down there with people like ulysses grant or james bucannon, but he was not thought of very highly. slightly infuriated mediocrity. strange things have happened since then, madison's reputation as president has been rising. if you look at current presidential pn see that madison -- weave had 44 presidents to date. not way down there. and recently i saw a poll that said that madison was number

six. now i'm not quite sure how to explain this.rçqcaúo cf1 o i'm just going to ask you to take my word for it at the moment, such a poll does exist. but i do want to say something about how we might explain this. and i say this, cat, without soft reference orl;vñ flattery. i think it does owe something to the appearance of modern founding father's additions in the second half of the 20th century. >> we have a much clearer idea than previous generations of what madison contributes to the establishment of the american republic and how he might have appeared to his contemporaries. in that process, he's come to fare pretty well. he's emerged as a distinctive figure in his own right. it might also owe something to the phenomenon has founder chic, when in fact, madison as the

member of the foundersw2zñ has generally has his image burnished along the wall of his contemporaries. i might even be tempted to suspect that as we have welcome more dissatisfied with our presidents since the 1960s, there is more competition for places at the bottom ranks. and this may have had the effect of pushing up the standing of presidents from the very distant past. however, there does remain a problem with the war of 1812, even in the year of his by centennial, americans are embarrassed by this war. they are confused about why it occurred, and they are rather uncertain whether it should be celebrated or remembered in any way. i was in the british embassy two sundays ago -- [ inaudible ] >> the campaigns of this war were by and large, military

fiascos and it's by no means clear, the united states was the victim. the best historians say it was a draw. so it's something of a para docks. the historical reputation is readsing, and the understanding of the central event of his presidency, the war of 1812, has not. so i want to say more about that paradox in the next few months. if you take almost any book on the war of 1812, and there are a great many books on the war of 1812 after two centuries, from the event, it's easy to pull out which contributed to his unsatisfactory progress and ambiguous outcomes. >> some historians have linked these directly to madison. they say it was his fault, a

result of his political decisions and his political style. can be described as problems when madison as president had to contend with, but didn't do a very good job of overcoming them. so what can we say about madison himself? a serious charge that was leveled against madison is that he did not want this war, and that he was pushed into it by congressional warhawks, who wrested control over national policy away from the executive branch. having lost that control over national policy, madison then compounded his difficulties by not providing sufficientd"cz en in his role of commander in chief. that problem is fundamental7 any understanding of the war of

1812. so the first question, who's war was it? was it madison's, or was it the warhawks? now most historians, i think, still favor the4xfs warhawks. but i think it's a misplaced emphasis. the critical developments that placed the americans on the path to war, occurred between march and july of 1811. in march of 1811 -- [ inaudible ] madison learned that georgia iii had latched on to what was going to be his final bout of insanity and the future george iv would have to discharge the duties of thelmj monarchy. since he despised his father and his cabinet and his policies, it was assumed that the principal agent would replace his father'q ministers with new ministers who

might then modify the harsh infractions of equal rights that had characterized british policy towards the united states up to that point. now, madison read these reports and he sensed that there was a chance for a change in anglo american relations, and to take advantage of that possibility, he bought into his cabinet, james monroe. there were a number of reasons why he did this. one reason, monroe had previously served as the american minister in london. and he had formed personal relationships with british politicians who were expected to come -- [ inaudible ] now, if this was a window of opportunity that very soon closed, the [ indiscernible ] never changed, despite what he

felt and for that reason, british policy towards the united states never changed. originally there was a conciliatory gesture towards the united states by sending a new british minister to washington in the summer of 1811. mod son knew that george iii's old minister were not likely to ease up on the violation of rights. now the prediction should come to pass. madison concluded he would have to adopt a much stronger policy of resistance toward great britain than he had done in the past. how do we know this? we know this because an q in the administration newspaper -- >> there's a complication. >> oh, sorry. there we go. sorry about that, i wasn't looking behind me. [ laughter ] yes, onwards and upwards. yes, how do we know this?

because an editorial in the administration newspaper, the national intelligence, the newspaper that coburn trashed when he burned washington in 1814. we know from a surviving fragment of the diary of the editor of that paper, joseph gales, that madison, in fact had dictated the contents of that editorial to the editor of the national intelligence. so what that means, as early as the spring of 1811, madison was considering very seriously the need to go to war in great britain. and this is seven months before the 12th congress and the warhawks even meet in washington. now, the negotiations between monroe and the british minister over the summer of 1811 confirmed madison's worst suspicions. not only did the british have no intention of changing their

policies, they also announced effectively, and i'm compressing a bit here, they announced effectively, that they would continue with these policies for as long as it took for them to end the domination of the affairs of europe. now this is 1811, remember. and in 1811, nobody1811. in 1811 nobody was predicting that napolian would be gone from the scene by 1814. you might have made that prediction by 1812, but by 1811 nobody was counting on him going away any time soon. so in response to that situation, madison at the end of july, 1811, called the 12th congress into an early session. his reason for doing so was that he decided that he had=@89 now no other option but to prepare for a war against great britain. again, he took this decision weeks and weeks before the 12th

congress met in washington before congress knew of the policies they might have to pass judgment on. so how can we say that affection of war hawks forced madison into a war that he did not want. quite simply we cannot say that. we should not is a thsay that. it's one of the myths that is hard to kill off but it is simply not true. the role of the war hawks was very different. they were not the makers of american policy toward great britain. the immediate spokesman who prepared this legislation worked its way through committees and votes in the house of representatives as congress prepared for war in the first six months of -- after november 1811. the prime mover of american policy here is not congress, it is president madison himself. now madison continued to try and shape policy this way throughout

the war of 1812. so my next question is how well did this work for him as a commander in chief? now the answer is a rather mixed one. in most cases, the policies that the administration sought passed the house of representatives. they did not necessarily pass the reason for this is the senate is not controlled by a simple m%mavuk of republican votes. rather the senate or administration supporters of the senate could often be outmaneuvered by culminations o federalists and anti-administration republicans who didn't like james madison very much. the result was that the administration did not always get the legislation it wanted or it didn't get it in a sufficient timely manner. the differences between what th administration wanted and what the administration got did have

an adverse affect on the implementation of policy throughout the war of 1812. this can be demonstrated in any number of ways. i will just do the two quick examples. one is the decision to expand the size of the american army in the first six months of 1812. the other example is all the debates of how do you finance the war in the second half of 1814 when the war is going extremely badly for the united states to put it simply, the expanded army was a bureaucratic nightmare that the war department never got full control over. by the end of 1814, the united states is facing severe financial difficulties. congress cannot pass legislation in ways that sort those problems out. the situation got so bad as i think somebody mentioned by the end of 1814, theaürráed states has in fact defaulted on their

national debt. i should add here that nobody in this room should tell congress that this is happening in america. we do not want to encourage bad behavior on the part of national legislatures any time in the near future. but that's what did happen towards the end of the war. now what would madison have done about this or could he have done anything about it? he had no personal clout over congressm congressmen. he did not bargain for votes. he did not use patronage or votes or seize them by the labells of their coat and say son, nieed your vote. just to imagine that scenario is to see how impossible it is in this point in american history. but the problem is not that

madison did not try to influence what congress did, he did try to influence what congress did within the means that were available to him at that time. the real difficulty is the president didn't have very much affective power to guarantee control over the outcomes that he sought. all right, let's move to another question. how did madison manage his cabinet as the organ of the administration during the war? again, i think the answer is rather a mixed one. to summarize it simply, in 1809 and 1817, which is mad isson's tenure in the white house, he had three secretaries of state, three secretaries of the navy, four secretaries of the treasury and four secretaries of war. put all that together and ob,+á% can see why any number of historians said this man

couldn't hold a cabinet together to save himself. this is a symptom of all things that went wrong in the war. well, i'm not going to review the entire history of madison's relations with his cabinet. i will just hit on two high points. obviously there are serious problems in the war department as the critical organ of government here. madison's first secretary of it's pretty clear had very few ideas about strategy or tactics. he was largely a bureaucrat. the nature of the war office, the way it was organized at this point compelled him more orxelss to act as glorified master general for the army.

he was forced&e#(#tr'g 18 and his replacement initially was james monroe who could handle the details the war department. but much of?ir what monroe did n he was in the war department was designed to position himself to become president in 1817. in affecting in that way he fueled a very bitter feud with the secretary of war, a man named john armstrong of new york who actually held the war office for most of 1813 and 1814. &$q problem was armstrong also wanted to be president in 1817. as a consequence, neither armstrong nor monroe ever lost an opportunity to under cut each other throughout the war. this was sort of the patent of

misconduct or behavior if you'd like that culminated when the british attacked washington on that occasion. some of you will know that armstrong declined to participate 100% in the arrangements for him at the capitol while monroe has been accused with meddling with the organization of the troops at the battle of dlbladendberg and think historians feel that he should have stopped this feud that he should have clamped down firmly on him or sacked one of these people involved. but madison did not fire him or monroe.

only part the problem i think lies in madison's personality. certainly as his been mentioned, he was not confrontational in style. he liked to avoid unpleasantness if he could possibly could. the real problem was that madison had most difficulty getting anyone to serve in the cabinet at all. he went through rafts of kand yaep, kand yaepcandidates throughout . he got far more refusals then acceptances. the reality is too few politicians in the early 19th century thought a cabinet position was worth the sacrifices that it entailed. the reality was that madison usually had to settle with whom so so ever he could get and retain them for as>yñ long as he possi

could. this was a reactive quality rather than proactive quality of decision making. he seemed to only deal with decisions only after they had gotten out of hand and it was further. on the matters of war time policy, the standard criticism that's made of madison that he spent too much time pursuing the wrong strategies after the warl of 1812. what this means specifically is that when the americans invaded canada, the united states attacked all the wrong places in canada. british power in north america wrested on their control of montreal, québec. all of this is true enough. it cannot be denied but i think that situation did not arise from an affect of understanding

of the strategic requirements of the victory. in almost every year of the war, it was clearly understood that montreal was the first and most important target for the americans to get control of. after that they could then move on eastwards to québec and maritimes. the campaigns in the regions west of montreal were made either in response to the need to devote more resources to local defense, particularly against hostile indians on the northwest frontier of the united states, or they are undertaken as preliminaries to advances on places of much greater strategic significance. the problem was that many of these failed and in their failures, they created new difficulties that required a different attention and resources before further advances could be made. the result was that the united states became bogged down in a series of small conflicts that

did not develop according to any coherent strategy of how the larger war might be won. now if that's the case, the problem with the american war effort was not so much an affective strategy as the inability to develop sufficient military power to surmount the other obstacles to exist. what were the other obstacles to success and how far can madison be held personally responsible for them? most of them center around three factors. cts in the united in relation to that is an overreliance on untrained militia forces and the third one is the inability of the united states to cope with the lonl gic problems of invading canada to

the north. now it has always been said and already been mentioned today that the united states army was too small to take canada. most estimates of its size by the end of the war sort of reckon it was little more than 30,000 men strong. however, a statistical analysis of the registers of enlistment and surviving military records from the period suggest that there were probably something near about 48,000 men in the united states army by the end of the war. that's a fairly significant difference. it's about 15,000 men. on top of that you've got to consider that in terms of man power, the united states had an advantage over canada of about 15 to 1 in terms of its adult population. you put all of that together and you'd think surely the united defeat the relatively few in

canada but it was not. so the question arises as to why not? one reason is that after the failures of the first six months of the war, political pressures on the administration required to distribute a great many regular troops around the coast after the failures of the war, there is the possibility that the united states is going to have to deal with more mobile british forces as they increasingly do in 1813 and 1814. that left fairly comparative troops for offensive operations against canada. even at the height of the war in 5÷úh:÷ summer of 1814, the unit states could take no more than 4,000 regular troops into canada. although the army fought quite credibly in 1814, there certainly weren't enough men to

dispose of the british positions whi , now, what we say about the quality of these troops, how well were they trained? well, they were scarcely trained at all. now, i want to be careful about what i'm saying here. i'm not saying that the army received no training. it did receive training of various sorts at a fairly rudimentary level. the real problem was that the army had no uniform system for training men. in fact the united states army employed three quite incompatible matters of trying to train men throughout the war. this created enormous difficulties for generals in higher offices who had to then try and meld men trained in different ways into a unified force that could then meet an

enemy that was trained in a unified and single way. after the military conventions that operated at the time, trained troops would always beat untrained troops. it was proven in the war of 1812. not until january of 1815 that thousand addreto address the problem of how do we train the army. the war has one month to run in january of 1815. so is the president responsible for this? should madison have sorted out this problem and sort of said we need to train the army in a better way. you might say he did. you might say, well, this is a sort of problem that the secretary of war should sort out. that's supposed to have the expertise. there's no evidence that anybody

in the war department either james monroe or armstrong had the lightest idea that this was a problem during the war. it was to take officers like winfield scott who learned the hard way by nitty-gritty harsh experience about what it took to train men underarms. above all to teach them not to run from the enemy as they did at the battle of bladensberg. now because of that, all of these defects in the army, it was always necessary to supplement its numbers with militia. if the regular army was not very wa far worse in the state militias. the federal government had the international servants under spes ficified conditions but ha authorities to impose uniformed methods or training on them.

those matters were left to the states. basically the states did nothing about it in the early 19th century despite the fact the president and secretary of war said we have a problem. congress refused. as a result, the worstqm0dm fia occurred in the war of 1812 are always associated with defects in the militia. i will give you two quick examples. one is the battle of october of 1812 when the new york state militia refused to cross over the niagra river to reinforce american regular troops who had actually managed to gain a toe hold on theçk,q canadian shore the niagra river. they refused that the constitution did not oblige them to serve outside the boundaries of new york state. the other instance-ufb of courss the battle of bladesberg in

militias and others simply fled from a british army who was only about 2/3rds of its size. the third problem i mentioned was logistic problems. that is always been seen as a very serious problem. by deciding to attack canada, the united states had a committed itself to an offensive war that was to be waged over a frontier that was over a thousand miles in length and required it to supply it to downs and cities that were well to the rear of the military frontier. demographic and geographical realities of the northern frontier. basically thexiqn÷ population i too sparse to have an army live off the country. you can't throw an army up there and say feed yourself and march on the british. it was much more complicated than that.

the problem was the united states had very rudimentary supply agencies in the early 19th century. jefferson had abolished a good many of them in 1802. many of them had to be re-created from scratch after the war of 1812 during the war itself so it's not terribly surprising that there were enormous unefficiencies aniré1ñ problems in getting these supply agencies up and running and to do their job in the proper manner. now all of these factors you will find have been discussed at great length in books on the war of 1812. x÷ some sort of broader perspective in order to understand why the war of 1812 was so unsatisfactory. we mine as well consider a question that very few historians have offered to ask themselves and that is how did

madison think about these problems? did he ever address any of them in his correspondence? well, for the war years, the result is rather disappointing not put downsa:] in writing ve much about his reactions of the events of the war itself beyond saying of course that he was disappointed that the war was not going entire lly according plan. but there are some letters as mentioned from madison's retirement years in which he does reflect on thedja problem that he encountered during the war of 1812. i want to say something about those letters now. they date from the month of february 1827, and madison was responding to questions he had received from two people who were thinking of writing history of the war of 1812. now the first point to make about these letters is that no where does madison take the

blame for anything that went wrong. in that respect he was90qy enti unrepentant about every decision he made during the war. he said well, why do we have to go to war. he said well, it was the british's fault. they are to blame. if they had been more reasonable even by the matter of only a few weeks in 1812, there would have been no need for a war at all. the british were to blame. in response to the charge that was put to him that his administration failed to address the nation, he said well, was congress ees fault. if they'd given me the lawi izs the shape and:cqx time, he said think we would have seen a very different picture. on top of that madison said, perhaps he shouldn't have said canada if you look at it along a historical perspective is a very

difficult and hazardous enterprise. experiences he had during the seven years war and what the americans had vi during the opening years of the revolutionary war when two american armies had failed to take and hold québec in the opening months of the american revolution. madison summed up this in the following way. i quote, the difficulties were explained quote by the forests we penetrated, the savages to be encountered and the likes and other waters to be passed in order to reach a distant theater where the adversary was at home in the midst of all of his resources for defense, closed quote. madison also listed two other factors that he considered to be of paramount importance. one has already been alluded to in previous talks. that was the failure of

napoleons invasion of russia of 1812. this was a subject that caused enormous controversy at the time and has continued to cause some controversy since. 1827, madison admitted something  admitted during the war itself and that was that he expected napoleon that defeat the russians and take them out the war. he says had napoleon been successful in the war of 1812, it would be -- this is his words, a fair calculation, closed quote that great british and its european allies would have been so fully employed to deal with the consequences of a french victory that great britain would be virtually unable to defend canada at all. under those circumstances, madison said, the british would have had no choice and i quote, again, but to listen to our reasonable terms of reconciliation. closed quote.

the other factor that madison went on at great length about was the poor quality of american generals during the war. if you read any history of the longest and dreeriest catalogs of people+. wellñ we might say well, after all he had signed the commissions for most of the generals and had a role in selecting them but when we look at this letter of the war closely, we see that madison is not so much intent on blaming all the generals as he was in faulting one general in particular. that general was brigadier general william hold who was supposed to have commenced the war in the summer of 1812 by

invading upper canadaláññ from american town of detroit. hull enkoutered canada in augusf 1812 and withdrew about two weeks later and surrendered to a smaller force of british and indian allies. for this he was court martialed and sentenced to death. madison actually reprieved the death sentence though not the verdict of the court. hull argued in his defense that he had good reasons for his decision. basically he did not trust his army to do the job. he assumed that they would fail in advance. he said that if he had trained to invade canada and failed and the brishish counter attack all the women and children in the town of detroit. now madison was not very sympathetic toward hull when he fought about back this episode in 1827 nor have most historians

since 1812 been very sympathetic towards hull. madison said hull's experience and knowledge should have lived him to take greater risks for a victory than he did. and he wrote, i quote, what a contrast would be the success so easy at the outset of the war. a triumphant army would have seizes upper canada and the importance command of lake eerie would have fallen to us. the indians would have been neutral or submissive to our will. the general will of the country would have been kindled into enthusiasm and enlistents would have been accelerates. volunteers would have stepped forward and doubled in confidence. the intrigues of the suspected would have been smothered in

their embryo state. in short what madison was claiming here was that the united states never recovered from the opening defeat of the war. that the impact of this set back was so serious that it hampered all other aspects of the prosecution of the war. this is at least an arguable case that presumably historians are going to continue to argue about. that was how5

commander in chief. in other words, we can carry this process on endlessly and qualification after qualification to the judgment and within excess of qualification. now, two verdicts might be one is to throw up their hands and despair and say if the problems of waging a war of 1812 was so difficult than the real eror madison made was the war at all. the nation was in no condition to wage the war and risked the republic by doing so. you might say this is true enough. the evidence of the war would seem to back up that sort of judgment. i would simply point out at this juncture that that answer would have left madison with no solution to the problems the

nation was facing in the year of 1811 as he was making the critical decisions. the other point we might make about this is that we really lack appropriate yardsticks to measure madison's performance in the nation's history. today all success drawsyp heavi on the presidencies of the abraham lincoln and roosevelt. centu century, george washington's role as a revolutionary war general isn't really an appropriate analogy for us to use here. early 19th century americans, madison included, held deeply engrained fears about the potential abuse of executive power in times of war. the way they saw it, it was a short road to monarchy and tyranny. furthermore to the extent that

madison and his contemporaries did think about the nature of executive power, they did not believe it was the role of the president either literally or metaphorically to rally the troops either in the army or among the public at large. wage. madison had seen john adams try to do something very similar at the end of the 1790s. out of his mind and had fark@>e exceeded the executive power of that time. these concerns led madison to act with greater restraint during÷qn1 the war. now that might seem to be a fairly bleak picture but the

picture need not so bleak with all of these failures that historians talk about, there were some successes and achievements. if the united states did not decisively win the military contest. it did not lose the war either. the british cannot and should not claim that because the americans did not achieve their stated war aims that the british or kcanadians simply won the wa. by the summer, the british had ste staked out some fairly large claims that they might advance against the united states. there was talk about altering the boundaries of the united britain has control of the great lakes, things like that. the point to make about all of this is that in 1814, the britishkív armies failed to delr the goods. the british army failed despite the fact that they managed in

the course of this failure. when the terms of the treaty came out, it was the british who felt that they had lost something and the americans had felt that they had won something. the british were somewhat embarrassed that they had not incisii ininsignificant military power of the united states. this is why many historians have decided the war of 1812 was merely a draw. i don't find that term entirely satisfactory. a draw to me implies that two fairly evenly matched forces failed to achieve success in a conquest. the united states and great british were not evenly matched after 1812. there are notable a symmetries on both sides which in fact made it very difficult for either to

press on conclusively. the war ended not so much as a was born in the inability to find ways to continue the conflict. had it come to that point in the end of 1814, both eventually would have settled for a peace to restore the status quo. we might even qualify that verdict a little further. nobody won we might say but that does not mean there were no losers in the war. all historians agree that the real losers in the war of 1812 were the indian peoples. a good many of whom fought on the side the british but a significant number also fought on the side of the united states. americans tend to forget that some indians fought for the americans during the war of 1812. regardless of their choices, all

indian participants in the war lost very heavily. they suffered 1ldisportionately in the number casualties they incurred and as the price of peace in 1814 and 1815, they were forced to cede large areas of land to the united states. these land successions particularly in the gulf coast and regions to the south of the great lakes ensured that the united states was going to dominate in the future. i say that because this is an outcome that could not inñ have been taken for granted in 1811. in hindsight it21!h&ooks sort o inevitable but the fact we shouldn't read history from behind. it was not as inevitable as we might like to think. those outcomes to the war of 1812 set the stage for future american expansion across the continent until by the time we get to 1848, there was no doubt

that the united states is the supreme power on the north american continent and that the survival of great britain's kol kne , colonies will be on american good will and tolerance of the british. influence of those be felt well into the late 19th century. he did this while at the same time trying to preserve his vision of what sort of nation the united states should be and he did not use the emergence of war to bring about changes in tñ form of its government. the war of 1812 was one of the few wars in the nation's history that was fought without any restrictions on the civil liberties of its critics or

other people in the nation. that was a decision that madison was determined to uphold. he did not as i've alreadyjeñzv mentioned want to see a repetition of the policies of the alien saidition acts that6ç adams had resorted to so this is a rather tangled picture admittedly but in the complicated nature of these developments, there were some successes. i think madison probably should be given credit for some of them. thank you very much. [ applause ]f:kñ the floor is open.

>> do you recognize mr. mud or am i speaking out of turn. >> if you want to, you can. yes, sir. >> okay. >> given the fact that the congress did declare a war. given the fact that madison did not like to grap lb lapells or campaign why do historians make him the only president who is given soul ole ownership of a w >> well. i'm not sure i would agree with the premise. people said pretty b$"÷uncharit things about the war in the 18 foer 40s. i think it's inconceivable that there would ever be a war with  time had he not insisted on it for his own reasons but i think to come back to the premise of your question, the question is that madison seems to be a convenient

scapegoat. he's where he can locate all blame because we have in fact realistic expectations of what a president might have accomplished at that point in the nation's history. we say well, lincoln, roosevelt is what it takes to be a successful commander in chief in time of war but i think no president could have operated that way in the early 19th century. institutional and other developments had just not taken place in american political development at that time i think to have made that possible for a president to do that. so the war of 1812 is a mess. how do we explain the mess? historians have done. it's what critics at the time did when they wish to criticize the war and all that seems to be going wrong with

so we recycle stories through histofstory like that. >> thank you. if my memoryg]ñ there's a provision in the treaty of gent, i think the last provision that talks about a promise to deal with the indian issue and native-american issue and slavery. why was that put in there and whatever happened? >> in both cases affectively nothing. to give you the short answer first. the provision relating to the slave trade is that theó[&/ br inserted that in the treaty and were trying toqxfu make the uni states -- the united states undertook to take more active steps in the suppression of the atlantic slave trade which -- british was the only nation in the world that was seriously interested in doing even though the united states also abolished the atlantic trade in 1808.

the british put it in. the americans agreed to sign thf treaty with that in it. but the americans were very bad in enforcing that. they did not really cooperate with the british in the suppression of the trade. one of the worst offenders was john adams. who signed the treaty of gent who was the principle american think john adams wouldl4buç enf the suppression of the atlantic slave trade when he was president a few years later. one reason was that it would have allowed british naval vessels to stop american merchant american and slafrs on the coast of africa and say let me see your cargo and manifests. this was too much8h÷ñpjfú.

john quincy adams was going to be one of the last american presidents. he was a very considerable anni anglophobe in his own right. the other is an agreement that the united states and british would undertake to restore the indians toñoaá the status that had enjoyed in the year 1811, the year before the war broke out. now the british insisted on this. even though we know as they were doing this they were in the process of about throwing their indian allies to the wind just as they had in fact had done at the conclusion of the american revolutionary war in 1782, 1783. the british put there was largely a face saving device because at the beginning of the negotiations, the british had insisted on the establishment of this indian buffer state that

professor lambert had preferred to earlier. that went no where. the british ministered told their negotiators at gent, drop that. we're not prepared to rupture the talks over that. so the british came up with this as a face saving formula for the purposes of diplomatic negotiations. the americans accepted it. probably neither side in gent in the extent to how bad the indians had been defeated and how badly they would suffer in terms of land sessions. for example, andrew jackson as he ended the creek war in the middle of 1814, took 23 million acres of land fromñrf÷ the cree indians. now under the terms of theói;-x treaty, you might think was supposed to go back.

but the americans accepted because one they didn't think there was any realistic chance of enforcing it and there wasn'÷ and the americans were not prepared to see8fñ the negotia break up over a point like that at that stage. that time, too. the result was it was pretty much a dead letter. nobody took any notice at least became president a few years lates later. >> thank >> the war 1812 is always thought to have been af or loss because the new englanders wrote most of the history books. >> yes. there's a certain amount of truth to that. >> the theory is one reason why we regard the war of 1812 as a failure is that new englanders t came to write most of the

histories. that is true and of course the classic case in point is henrybr adams. who was the son of president's great grandson the presidents s whofo wrote the classic historyf the united states inon this rint period.hiod. he waxed eedgy(d eloquent abou floors of these virginian presidents not that adams was simply sympathetic to the new ta áip r(t&háhp &hc% he suspected they were a little disloyal but that bias hasthat s entered i pét$e history. there weren't asúbk2v southerners writing as this were new englanders. so yes, there is a certain9? pt to that.p:dñc >>d÷&úñ madison faced a serioar attempt to remove the cede of government from the patomic yet i find little in madison's

papers about the subject.n,zyjt the point was it was going nowhere. but i did find some documentary evidence that it is not in madison's papers that madison let it be known that if that md billis passed, he would veto it. the source of that is not madison himself but it can be

m >> where would you say are the most serious kargts of the war of 1812? >> what were the most serious casualties in the war of 1812? well, i suppose we should say casualty in any war is the loss of life. so how many americans were killed in the war of 1812?war this is rather difficult to calculate. nobody sort of kept precise ca figures on this sort of thing. the estimate that's given is that aboutst 2.5 thousand americans who served in the

regular army were killed or died of wounds. in other words they died as a direct result of combat in the t war. i did some calculations, and i . found that in fact, about 10% o more of the army died of more o disease, sickness, and other causes that are not directly related to the battle.at are n they were simply a product of as very unhealthy nature of military camps, the inability op army commanders to provide decent sanitation, which disease, if it got into an army camp could go through and take e very heavy toll on life and substantially more men on the american side died as a result of disease and sickness than they ever did -- than the british did to them. there's a little bit of colateral damage that occurs when militia dies a result of t

british raid as a result of whae we've been talking about.ab we might estimate that sort of p sayer perhaps 15 or 15,000 americ, 16,000 americans died in one way or another as a result of the war of 18 twef12. the indians suffered a rather higher percentage of losses. pr we don't know precisely because weve don't have very good figurr for indian population. of course, the numbers that the indians that are operating frome a far smaller demographic base so the impact of heavy losses will be much greater proportionately on indians. so the indians lost a great many warriors, particularly but alsoo women and children from starvation as a result of the a war. that made it all the easier for americans after 1815 to remove f

some of these people.ately ship them further west. did fac that this did facilitate american expansion acrossth the continent. on top of that, i'm sure you can throw in property damages. the result of british raids. i guess probably impossible to put a precise figure on that. the british captured a fair fewh americane merchants during the t period but the americans also da captured a good many british merchants. i think it's impossibleto to pua figure on that but if we say that human damage is necessary, the greatest damage that any war inflicts, that's what it looks c like on the american side.ink wc i don't think we can do much better than that given our current state of knowledge.

>> yes. >> the question. sort of counter factual unterfa speculation, if the british prevail at chalmet, does the treaty of gent get rewrite en. >> the answer to that is no. books want to say that jackson saved the nation. the answer is no. the chronology is quite straight forward. the treaty of gent was signed on the 24th of december, 1814. it was ratified and according to the law of nations, a treaty cannot come into affect until both governments, the principles of the diplomatics who have beeo doing the negotiation have ratified it. the british government ratified. the treaty of gent on the 28th

of december, before they sent ie across the atlantic to see what sort of reception it made in t s washington. the battle of new orleans was a foughtns on the 8th of january, 1815. the news of the battle and treaty didn't get into washington until early februaryd 1815 and then the war comes to an end. thome british by ratifying the h treaty have said to the americans we want this war to bv over. i under the international law, for the war to have continued after the british ratification, the e americans would have had -- that would have had to have been an american decision. nobody in washington in february of 1815 said we should throw ouo this treaty in order to carry out the war. that is a great myth that andrea jackson -- this is not so they that jackson's victory did not

have consequences for american politics. would jackson have become president without that battle?ot but no. the british had signalled quite clear that the b war was over that the americans were confronted with a choice. wei we agree with them. we don't agree with them.agree they chose to agree. >> in more recent years, the was has been referred to as the -- . america's second war for independence. could you comment on that? >> well, the word literary critics use is it's a trope.hi it's not a word i greatly like. but it emerges about the time oa the war itself. it emerges sort of, the first ,e books -- american books on the war of 1812, they start appe appearing as early as 1816. if you read those books, th particularly from 1816os throug to the civil war, they all taket

this line that america -- the classic place you can find this is a thousand page book.sand-pag a thousand pages, written by a d new york journalist. it's probably one of the most widely known 19th century and th sources on the history of the war. this is exactly the line that lawson takes. he says in 1783, we became free from great britain. not we did not become independent because the british did not respect our independence. the proof was the way they treated us during the napoleon wars. so when he gets the treaty of g gent, he writes afterwards, he says the british have given up. america finally becomes not onlt free but independent. behind that's the assumption behind tht notion that the warhe of 1812 w

necessary to complete the independence that was supposedly won between 1766 and 1783.1783. it's going to take another war to v vindicate and consolidate that independence. that's the dominate myth thatmyr runs through american historiese of the war for w much of the 19 century. it's still there in 20th century histories but 20th century accounts have added additional a layers ofti causation and complication as professional historians dug more into the au] records. [ applause ] athursday on cspan, a grig ulture committee hearing on improving meals in schools. here is a look.

>> of course kids like nonwhole grains. yes, that's what they prefer. they like sugar even more. you give a child a choice would you like to have sugar for lunch or fruit or vegetables they are going to pick sugar. it's what they like. their taste buds love it but we have to be the adults in the room. he just don't give kids the foods they want. you have to give them and teach them thousahow to eat well for whole lives. that takes leadership. determination. creativity. i love the fact that you told your school district kick three colors everyday. my children when i was teaching them about nutrition when they are four, five, six, that's how we did it. how many colors can you put on your plate? they loved that. because i fed my children steamed vegetables as children, they are only liked steam vegetables. they don't want butter on it or cream. they want steamed vegetables. they've been eating fruit at every meal since they were babies. my kids as a consequence because

they are introes deuduced to he foods at every meal they prefer healthy kids. a lot of these kids are not getting healthy kids at home. a typical meal will be a burger and fries. of course they prefer a burger and fries. that's what they've been fed since they were little. we have to do more. i feel that yes, to senator hovan, it is easy to like flexibility but let's not serve refined foods at lunch. let's actually push them to eat something healthy that makes them healthy and reach their full potential. when i kid is obese, he's doesn't reach his full potential. he can't concentrate. he's often made fun of. he has low self-eft esteeelf-es. he doesn't reach his full potential or her full potential. so i do not want to back off

these nutrition standards. let's figure it out. we can figure it out. >> thursday a senate agriculture committee hearing on efforts to improve nutrition in school s meals. you can see it at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan. with live coverage of the u.s. house on cspan and the senate on cspan 2, here we compliment that coverage by showing you the most relevant congressional hearings and public affairs autoveevents and weekends we're home to cspantv, nations that tell our story. the civil war's 100th anniversary. american artifacts. history book shelf. with the best moan american history writers. the presidency, looking at the policy and leg assies of our nation's commanders in chief. lectures in history with top

college professors delving into american's past and our new series, real america featuring archival government and educational films through the 1930s1812.

this afternoon's session beginning with andrew lambert, challenge, naval war of 1812. >> my name is stewart mclauren, and i'm the president of the white house historical association where we are privileged to convene today for this significant event. we're honored to have with us today two members of the board of directors of the white house historical association, the honorable stock and kiplinger. we're also honored to have with us today mr. william almond, who is the curator of the white house. this program commemorates bicentennial of one of america's most critical but overlooked conflicts.

with the gathering of extraordinary scholars and experts in history field, next two days sure to educate and inspire, enhance our understanding of the war of 1812. the white house historical mission echos symposium goal, echos public on history of white house. we're so pleased to host this d day, the study of white house history. this event could not be possible without the partnering and support of our co-sponsors united states historical society. we thank two wonderful partners for being with us today and cricks they have made to make this a successful event. we would also like to extend a special word of thanks to the company that generously overrode

this. if you're with us for dinner you'll receive a special gift made from kim art for this symposi symposium. we're grateful for the relationship we've had 34 years in the production of our white house christmas ornament. this began in 1981 and a very significant part of what we do given proceeds of the sale of this ornament go to support our work with the white house. take a moment to visit our shop, right across the courtyard behind you today as well as online at www.white house history.org to obtain 2014 christmas ornament. finally to white house association in washington and those watching on c-span from across america, 14 prestigious

supporters guide us through one of our most significant periods in history. to begin our full program, it's my pleasure to welcome president and ceo of james madison montpelier to present our session one apprehenders. >> good afternoon. it's so wonderful to be here. i wanted to say our board chair in may joins us as many montpelier board members. i hope under the circumstances a chance to meet our leadership. could not be more pleased to have this ton to sponsor this next two days, mr. madison's war and the burning of washington city. declaring war, congress and the president exercised pourt that were granted by the constitution. for our young country only three decades removed from war of independence.

the war of 1812 tested many of the ideas in the constitution and it called upon madison to abide by limitation of powers he worked so hard to institute. as we commemorate sobering events of 1814, this panel will be shedding light on scholarship and ideas about origins and outcomes of the war. fittingly i love we begin with the british context of the war. i'm pleased to welcome to the program dr. andrew lambert. he's professor of naval history at kings college in london. in addition to writing about british strategy and technology, he's the author of an award winning volume on the war titled "the challenge, britain against america in the naval war of 1812." it was just honored with the anderson award. if i can have you help me join in welcoming dr. lambert to the podium. [ applause ]

>> have you very much for extremely kind introduction. the war of 1812 is somewhat ironic back home. we didn't know it happened. it's a great honor to be here today. my thanks to the team at white house historical association and all that managed to put this esplanade it event together. it's important when viewing great events of national history to take a look outside and to see what everybody else is doing at the same time where this particular set of events in this country fits into the picture. the war of 1812 in world history

and to put that relationship between britain and america in 1812. the war of 1812 presented problems for both side of the atlantic. in the united states james madison decision for war split the country. a conflict of economic interests. south and west welcomed it as an opportunity for territorial expansion and address of other significant internal issues. news of the war reached a british government which had recently been reconstructed, prime minister shot in the house of commons and replacement liverpool was not thought to be destined for a long-term in office. in fact, he would last 15 years, prime minister, but nobody knew that at the time. he was not thought to be a great leader, an inspiring figure. he was not a man with a command of the rhetoric of parliament

or, indeed, a public person ark, a heroic figure but he turned out to be a very good manager of a cabinet at a time they needed management because the king, zi king of this cunning george i -- country, george iii plunging intoñró madness. we needed a leader that solid, reliable and turned out to be that man. the tenth year in the conflict with napoleon bon mart. war broke out in 1803. issues many and various but waging war against greatest warrior in american history for a decade. they had managed motte to lose partly was they lived on an island. they had optimism the war of

1812 would end well. lat major victory, battle of trafalgar, since then hung around the mountains knows french and hoping the rest would realize being ruled by france was a bad idea. some europeans had seen this but not all of them. they were not especially worried by american declaration of war. the united states was quite a small country, had relatively limited resources and no great reputation for having a large and powerful army or large navy either. what the british were worried about was additional strain on already seriously overstretched resources. i show you this to remind people that the louisiana purchase was transformational for the united states it turns a country which looks to the atlantic to one that looks to the rest of the

contine continent. not just west but north and south as well. the war between britain and america was, of course, a consequence of the anglo french war, britain's strategy of locating europe with extreme legal measures that brought on the clash with the united states. after the destruction of his navy at trafalgar, napoleon instituted a total war against britain. his strategy was to exclude british trade from europe and try to bankrupt the british. napoleon understood the basis of british power was notaéó men, armies or even fleets, it was trade and money. if napoleon could break british economy, britain would surrender. his continental system would harness european continent in a war against britain. they would exclude all british trade from europe on penalty of seizure and destruction.

the british counter-blockade did exactly the reverse. it cut europe off from the rest of the world. europeans had to fight 12 year long war without coffee and there were a few other things they missed as well. british counter-blockade cut europe off from africa, asia and americas and fundamentally threatened america's economic development. from 1803 to 1812 american shippers, merchants and traders made a lot of money being the last carrier, last country that could carry goods from french  to europe through the british blockade. they were also trading with the british. neither the british nor the french treated the americans particularly kindly. the british would arrest their ships and send them before a court and napoleon simply burned them. but the american government thought napoleon was less

dangerous than the british. or indeed, less dangerous to their interests. the continental system, not this continent but the european continent, was beginning to destroy the economies of other european states. napoleon protected france from the economic war by asset stripping all of the conquered territories. first country to rebel would be russia. napoleon's only serious ally and a major trading nation with a big export trade geared towards supplying british market. inside continental system from 1807 to 1811, russia saw her economy collapse. being part of napoleon's team was very bad for your business. in 1811, the czar of russia, alexander realized if he carried on like this, his country would be bankrupt and he would follow his father to an early grave. the last time russia made war on

britain, the czar was murdered and they changed the government. basically most of the landowners in russia relied on selling goods to the british to pay their bills. the czar decided bankruptcy and debt was slightly less bad than being invade by napoleon but only slightly. even as the war of 1812 is about to start, the cracks in napoleon's system are becoming quite fundamental but the british haven't yet seen the future. 1811, the long-running interchange of arguments reached a high point with the incident between u.s. president and little belt. the little belt is the small one with the union flag. a case of mistaken identity according to john rogers, a case of deliberate aggression according to arthur bingham who commanded the little belt. but british, far too busy doing other things. in 1811, 1812, napoleon

beginning to gear up for russia, the great campaign that will decide outcome of the conflict in europe. the war depends on the french winning. if russia collapses back into the continental system, napoleon dominant in europe, what possible hope have they got of carrying on. they will have to make terms. it will be possible then to negotiate with them on a range of issues. but the british wouldn't surrender to napoleon, little known to james madison. the main british army fighting successfully in spain and duke of wellington and royal navy protecting global trade. the british had no spare ships, men or money to fight a war with anybody else. indeed, during the war of 1812 british military effort on land and sea was rarely more than 7% of their land and sea forces. they simply didn't have any more

to spare. they didn't have a choice. that was all their was. british defensive, largely reactive. americans had the initiative. they chose where to fight and how to fight. as we know, the united states opened a conflict with what should have been a three-pronged defensive and what is now canada and a surge of warships and privateers in the western atlantic to cut britain's economic life lines. the canadian frontier became the main military theater. for three years heavily outnumbered british regulars, canadian militia and warriors defended the border. to meet attacks british shifted some troops into the canadian theater. they came from the west indies, not from europe. the british moved no soldiers from the european theater until after the napoleon conflict. as long as napoleon remained in power, british strategy would be defensive. the border did not move. this was a long-running but

ultimately stalemated conflict. this left the madison administration with an alternative strategy, the destruction of british floating trade and wrecking of britain's economy. strategy relied on private earring. united states navy was too small to do this. it needed assistance of a large number of privately owned and operated licensed predators. the british response to the american declaration of war, canadian frontier was the appointment of vice admiral seen here with his red sash on. a diplomat, highly successful naval operator, he was sent to command the entire theater with powers to negotiate an armistice and early return. that is what the britain's wanted. are the americans serious about this war. are they not prepared to think about this and go back to

business as usual. warren's job was to do everything but wage war, until he knew americans were absolutely determined on fighting. his command stretched from new finland to mexico and hampered by inadequate means, poor communications and very limited support from his home government. his defense of british shipping in the atlantic would determine the outcome of the war, but only after the americans declared they were desperately serious about waging it. only then could he turn defense into offense imposing a devastating economic blockade that simply treated the united states as another part of napoleon's continental system, something to be blockaded and economically ruined. initially, a shortage of ships and limited rules of engagement hampered warren's business. but even in late 1812, he began the difficult job of capturing

and incarcerating american privateer fleet. as they filled with sailors, the privateer fleet would begin to falter. five months after war did warren learn americans were determined to continue the conflict. he was then tasked with setting up system to protect shipping from new world to old, caribbean and british north america into british ports. by this stage over 150 british merchant ships had already been captured and more privateers were fitting out. there was money to be made in private earring. it was an attractive option. london underestimating the scale of the threat and ignorant of the length and complexity of the united states coastline sent in very few resources. what they did send initially were not of the first quality. they woke up when the united

states navy won three shattering victories over the royal navy. these successes in the autumn of 1812 made the british government pay attention. here we see a constitution taking guerriere in the wonderful picture which manages to disguise the key fact of the battle. the gerrier only two-thirds of the firepower and two-thirds the crew. if the american captain lost the battle, he would have made a very poor showing indeed. that's not the story that and in the republican newspapers. second battle, macedonia was embarrassing, british captain was blind and a fool. put up a very creditable fight against, once gena far bigger american ship. the two defeats were neither dishonorable or especially disadvantageous. the british quickly got their

crew back. the one thing they were shot of was sailors as we know from prewar impressment, american ships won the battles instead of carrying on to destroy british merchant ships had to go home from winning repairs. for the cost of winning some glory, the americans had ruined their mission. as was said, these were strategically irrelevant victories but did provide government, which had a lot to explain, with some very useful propaganda. the fact the administration had hamstrung the navy for 12 years, it made it all more ironic it was the navy that rode to their rescue. british government belatedly ordered reprisals against united states on the 3rd of october, 1812, news that didn't reach the new world until the end of november. november 21st, british government imposed strict and rigorous on the delaware ve